


Someone to Move the Stars For

by OrigamiCrane



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Harry is a rubbish big sister at first, I love AUs so hard, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, John is Toby, Labyrinth AU, Overprotective Sherlock, Possessive Sherlock, Rating May Change, Sherlock is the Goblin King, Teen Angst, This is what happens when I get ideas in the shower
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrigamiCrane/pseuds/OrigamiCrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Can I just say, I'm fairly rubbish at summaries but thank you for reading this. You people make me happy.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Power of Hoodoo

_“You have no power over me! Return him, Goblin King!”_

 

Harriet Watson bolted awake, panting and sweating. She jumped from her bed and ran down the hall as quietly as possible to her little brother’s room and opened the door.  Johnny was in his bed, tucked under a quilt made by their Nana, safe and sound.

               ~~~~

It was a familiar nightmare but every time she had it, she had to go check on Johnny. To make sure he was safe. To make sure that he hadn’t been snatched away in the night by imps and bogies under the command of the moon-eyed King of the Goblins.

               ~~~~

Once, long ago, when Harriet was younger she had resented the little baby that had come along so far after her.

               ~~~~

“ _Take care of him while we’re out, Harriet_ ,” as if she had nothing better to do with her time. Who cared about a fussy toddler when she was struggling with what to make of the fact that she had a crush on the pretty Ms. McDowell who taught music instead of swooning over the maths instructor Mr. Smith, like every other girl in her form?

So, when she went to put him in his cot and he would not.stop.whinging and grizzling on that stormy night, she finally cracked: “ _Do you know what happens to little boys who don’t stop crying?_ ” He sniffled and looked up at her with his big, wet blue eyes and shook his head.

She dredged up memories of her Nana’s stories, her stories of bogies and faeries.

The one that had been her favorite, that she had made her Nana tell her over and over again, the story of the wicked Goblin King who snatched children away from their families forever unless a loved one passed through temptation and trial.

“ _The goblins come and take them away_.” Johnny’s eyes grew wide and he tucked himself further back into the corner of his cot, clutching his teddy.

“ _In fact_ ,” Harriet said as she walked to the door of the bedroom to switch off the light, “ _I wish the goblins would come and take you away! Right now!”_

            ~~~~

“ _No, Harriet. I have no wish to return him. He will stay with me here in Goblin City and be happier than he would be growing up with a sister who cares less for him than she does for a stranger on the street_ ,” the tall man intoned in his deep voice as his eyes flashed with power.

_“NO! You have to return him! I passed your trials and tests and I’ve made my way through the labyrinth to ask you to give him back! You can’t keep him, that isn’t fair!”_ The fear in Harriet’s voice made it crack.

_“Fair? I never said I would be fair. You asked that the child be taken. I took him. Now I wish to keep him,” the raven-haired man looked down at the little boy cradled in his arms as he snuffled softly in his sleep._

Harriet was panicked; this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen! She had passed the test but he still wouldn’t give Johnny back!

She closed her eyes as she frantically thought of the story. How had it ended? She opened her eyes with a gasp. The words! What were the words that had to be said?

“ _Give me the child. Through dangers… untold and hard-sssships… un-numbered_ ,” she stuttered, _“I have f-fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen_. _For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great!”_

The Goblin King’s snapped up and his eyes widened, his arms curling tighter around Johnny as his mouth opened ---

_“You have no power over me! Return him, Goblin King!”_


	2. You Remind Me of the Babe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say, I'm fairly rubbish at summaries but thank you for reading this. You people make me happy.

Legs drawn up to his chin, the Goblin King sits on his curved throne as he watches the movement in the crystal orb that he held between his palms.

 

His pale eyes move back and forth as he watches a small (smaller than average, really) boy kick a football with all his might. When the shot goes in, his mobile mouth quirks up on one side at the little boy’s excitement at having scored but he tenses and his eyes narrow when a large boy from the other team knocks the little one down.  ‘ _Maybe that thug needs to be taught a lesson…_ ’

 

He’s unsure how long the intruder is there before he notices but he mentally curses himself for his inattention as he snarls in the direction of the window “Why are you here? No one here has need of your meddling.” He looks over and sees a raven perched on the sill with its head cocked as though considering his words.

 

Then the bird’s shape begins to shift.

 

“Now now, dear brother,” drawls the being that the raven becomes, “You’ve been alone with your minions too long. It seems you’ve forgotten what comprises polite discourse.”

 

“I’ve forgotten nothing, unlike you, who seem to forget what I informed you the last time you chose to ‘grace’ me with your presence. You are no longer welcome here! Now state your business and go, I’ve many things that require my attention.” The King straightened out his legs, but only to drape them over the arm of his throne and begins to twirl the crystal orb back and forth smoothly between his hands.

 

“Ahh yes, your attention seems to be rather fixed these days, doesn’t it? It seems all that your little imps can gossip about,” as the man gestures mockingly to the crystal orb in the King’s hand which causes the King to snarl and move the globe behind his thigh, “is the distraction of their mighty King with a small human child. He’s not the first babe that you could not keep and yet you continue to watch him. Why?”

 

“If you’re done meddling in my business, you know the way out,” the man on the throne motions at the window behind the other. “I’m sure that there is something at court that requires your attention.”

 

All pretenses and teasing dropped, the man by the window looks at the King seriously and softly asks “Brother, is he truly so special?”

 

The man on the throne stills and looks calmly at his brother. “He is.” He looks down at the orb in his hand which is filled with the smiling, happy face of a small blonde boy. “It seems that I was waiting for him, but I do not know why.”

 

“Well then, I am glad that his sister defeated you and you could not keep him. He will grow up and become a good man. Then when he comes to you, it will be because he wants to do so,” says the man by the window, “and isn’t that better than him growing up here and have him one day learn the truth? That you took him from his loving parents? He would hate you.”

 

“He would have been safe here,” the King defensively says, “He would have wanted for nothing!”

 

“Oh yes and that sort of life is good for a child?” his brother scoffs, “He will come back to you, provided you can have patience, and it is well that you do not lack for time. You must not meddle in his life, that warning is already too late I’m sure, but you have to let him live it and he will be the better for it. If he is meant to be yours, he will be. You cannot change fate, brother.”

 

Finally, the King’s anger gets the better of him and he stands from his throne abruptly. “You have the gall to tell me not to meddle in something?” he hisses at the other man. “Get out, you hypocrite!”

He turns his back and stalks from the room, scattering  goblins in front of him as he sweeps through the archway (where they were crowded and cowering, eavesdropping again!) and up the stairs to his tower room where he throws the crystal orb hard at some glassware on a table. Satisfied with the crash of glass onto the stone floor, he moves to the window and his unfathomable eyes follow the flight of a raven from his tower as it heads east, away from his city.

 

_‘Interfering bastard!’_ he thinks as he turns back to the room and glares around at the various inanimate objects that had nothing to offer him in the way of stimulation, ‘ _Boring!_ ’ and he stalks over to the table to see if the crystal orb has survived his latest attempt on its life. He could make another easily but that would take time and energy that he didn’t care to expend.

 

He picked up the miraculously intact ball and threw himself onto the long, low backed, padded bench against one wall. He held up the crystal, closed his eyes and when he opened them, he saw the scene had changed since he had last gazed into it.

 

The small boy was sitting at the table in his parent’s house, giggling uncontrollably at his sister’s attempt to balance a spoon on her nose but since she had the same stubby, upturned nose that her brother had, it was futile.

 

‘ _If I can only be glad of one thing, it is that his sister matured beyond her spoiled self-absorption to care for him.’_ he thinks as he watches the family scene, his eyes softening as he listened to the giggles and remembering when they had rung out delightfully in his own throne room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case any of you are curious about where I’m drawing inspiration from for the ‘Goblin King’ and his brother, please see the Welsh mythology section on Gwyn ap Nudd and his brother Edern ap Nudd, whose stories I am shamelessly modifying for my own use.  
> They’re quite mixed up with Arthurian legend. Gwyn is, at one point in the mythos, King of the Tylwyth Teg (the Welsh version of Fair Folk), who are described as stunted and ugly and they covet golden-haired human children…  
> But the best part is Edern’s story. He’s named as one of Arthur's knights in a list of his retinue, but plays no part in the narrative. Minor position in the British government if I’ve ever seen it, LOL.


	3. Never Go That Way

“What are you drawing, Johnny?” his mother asked as she paused in her movements to look over his shoulder, brushing his long blonde fringe off his forehead. “Probably need to make time for a trim before you head back to school, little mop.”

“Just some pictures, Mum. Can I get my hair spiked up like that man on the telly? He was wicked!” The little boy looked up at her with a big grin.

“Absolutely not, you’ll get the same haircut your father gets and that’s it,” she laughed down at her baby boy while looking at the pictures he had been so engrossed in creating. “These are quite good, especially this one.” She picks up one of the completed ones and examines it closer. “I think I’ll go hang this one on the fridge. Why don’t you clean this up? Your da and sis will be home soon and we’ll be having something small. We’ve been asked ‘round to the Carleton’s tonight and Harry’ll be watching you this evening.”

“Okay Mum,” he said as he hopped down off the chair and went to go stow his pencils and paper away in his school bag. He detoured to the bath on the way back down and washed his hands.

When he arrived back in the kitchen, his mother was in the middle of adding something to a pot of boiling water on the range. She turned and smiling, said “Set the table up for the food, love and be sure and wa—“

“I already washed my hands upstairs, Mum,” he gave her a cheeky grin as he went to the drawer to get the utensils out (he was too short to get dishes down by himself as yet) and proceeded to lay them in front of the various places on the table.

“Little imp.” his mother said, as she stirred the pot and reached over to pull the plates down for him. They both looked toward the garden door as they heard the sound of someone wiping their feet quite loudly. “Hey Mum,” the teenaged girl said as she stepped into the kitchen. “Hey brat,” was thrown in the boy’s direction to which he replied with a stuck-out tongue.

 “Hello dear, did you see the car coming? Your da should be here by now and we need to hurry and get to Tim and Wanda’s before 6.” One final stir to the pot and she began ladling the pot’s contents into bowls.

“I think I saw him come ‘round the corne—there’s him now.” They all looked out the windows to see the car pull up the driveway and up to the shed. The man who got out smiled to see all three of his family’s faces looking at him through the glass with varying expressions.

“Well now, what’s the rush?” He said as he came in to find the food already on the table.

“You’ll need to bolt that down and then go put on your good shirt and tie. You’ve forgotten that we got invited ‘round for drinks at the Carleton’s house tonight, I’ll bet.” His wife sat down and began eating her own food quite quickly.

“Ahh bollocks, I did.” His language caused his children to begin giggling. “Don’t you two start it up now, I know you’ve heard worse.”

“Not in this house they won’t,” his wife said firmly as she took her dishes to the sink and ran the water in them. “Harry, be sure that Johnny gets a bath and goes to bed by 8.”

“Yes, Mum.” the teenager replies as she eats her food and gives her little brother the evil eye across the table to which he responds with his best innocent grin.

           ~~~~~

Later that night, after making an unholy mess on the bathroom floor which his sister made him clean up, the little boy was tucked up into bed when he asks “Harry, can I have a glass of milk? I’m thirsty.”

His sister glares at him and says “Alright brat, I’ll go get you a wee glass and then off to sleep with no arguments.” She leaves the room and heads down to the kitchen. She has the glass poured and the milk back in the fridge before she sees the drawing that her mother had stuck on the door earlier.

Her mouth goes dry and her hand begins to shake as she pulls the paper off the door. She grabs the glass of milk and runs upstairs. Bursting back into the boy’s room, she startles him slightly when she shows him the drawing. “Johnny, who is this? How do you know this man?” she asks him shakily.

The boy’s eyes are wide and he looks at the drawing of the tall man with sad, pale eyes and dark hair, sitting on a curved back chair with a stone wall behind him. “I don’t know him, b--but he’s in my dreams sometimes. He smiles and says he wants me to stay with him. Sometimes you’re there in the dreams. He always seems sad,” he reaches one finger out to poke the paper. “I drawed a bunch more, want to see?!” He gets out of bed and runs to his school bag and pulls out several pages and hands them to his older sister.

She looks down at them, breathing heavily. She sets the glass of milk on the boy’s bedside table and begins to look through the pages. Page after page of childish drawings of castle walls, the tall, dark man and fantastic creatures that only she knows _actually exist_.

She lets out a shuddering breath and looks at the boy, who is sitting on his bed watching her nervously. “These—these are very good, Johnny. You draw really well. I’m proud of you. I’ll take them downstairs and show Mum and Da when they get back.”

He smiles delightedly and crawls back under his covers and reaches over for his milk. It takes him a few swallows but he drains the glass and hands it to his sister. She gives him a kiss on the head and walks to the door, turning out the light and says “G’night brat.”

“Night, Harry.”

She walks down the stairs slowly and goes to the kitchen to put the glass in the sink. She stands in the middle of the room and looks down at the top-most drawing, the one from the door of the refrigerator and lets out a small sob as the well of her guilt deepens.

She wishes, not for the first time, that she hadn’t been such a selfish bitch that night. That she’d never opened her mouth and said those damn words that brought her and her baby brother to the attention of the King of the goblins.

She takes the pictures over to the fireplace, sets a match to them, and watches them curl up and blacken.

Then, driven by her guilt and the need to forget how she’d failed her brother so badly, she walks over to the cabinet where her father keeps his liquor, pulls down the bottle of whisky, and takes her first drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh sorry, that got a little gloomy there at the end. 
> 
> I’ve got the next chapter mostly written. Thanks for reading guys, and I’ll try to wrap this story up in a way that won’t make you throw rocks at me.


	4. Take me away from this awful place!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that these last chapters have been heavy on the Harriet stuff but don't worry, the John/Sherlock stuff is coming, I promise. Just not quite yet.

In and out among the trees, two young boys chased each other. Yelling and waving sticks, the pirates (or soldiers or ninjas) fought one another for the buried treasure (or the honor or the princess) until they heard a call from two gardens away.

 

 Forced to declare a temporary cease-fire due to parental interruption, the two 8 year olds agreed to meet again tomorrow for further adventure. The neighbor boy ran off for his tea and the little blonde remained behind. He picked up their weaponry and went to lean them against the shed so they could easily be found before tomorrow’s battle. He walked towards the back of the house, wiping his hand across his sweat-covered forehead as his eyes automatically scanned the roofline and trees, searching for—yes, there!

 

There was his owl.

 

When he had begun noticing the owl, he had gone to the library and gotten a book on owls. He knew that the owl was a Barn Owl, _Tyto alba,_ and that usually in the wild, they only lived an average of 4 years. This thought made him sad because he reckoned that meant his owl wouldn’t be around for much longer since it had been nearly 4 years since he had first began noticing the owl. It wasn’t always there but he saw it here at the house, at school, and even outside the church that John’s parents lackadaisically attended. He assumed that this area was its territory and that it must have a nest somewhere close. Once though, he swore he saw it outside his grandparent’s house in Scotland when he spent a week of the summer holidays with them two years ago. Barn Owls are the most common owls but still, he couldn’t get over his gut feeling that the owl had been _his_ owl just the same.

 

He doesn’t remember exactly when he began to think of the owl as _his_ owl, it was wild after all but he knew that the owl was his like he knew that his parents and his sister would probably get into an argument tonight, which was why he was dragging his feet about going inside. He knew that his mum was probably waiting for him to come inside and get cleaned up for tea but he really didn’t want to endure another evening listening to the shouting and slamming of doors that seemed to define the last year of life in his house.

 

He wasn’t even sure exactly what had happened really, he had become aware that his parents were upset at his sister about her behavior, then suddenly Harry had decided to leave Secondary before completing sixth form and now spent her days passed out on her bed and her nights getting pissed (he’d learned that word from his friend Will) with her mates. When she was awake before she left the house at night, she and their father couldn’t be in a room together for more than five minutes before things exploded into a shouting match. Their mum spent quite a bit of time crying over what had happened to her little girl and every time John came into the kitchen to find her wiping her eyes on the tea towels, he felt worse and worse.

 

He didn’t think what was going on with Harry was his fault exactly, but one night he’d woken up in the pre-dawn hours to find that Harry had come home earlier than normal. She’d been quiet opening up his door but he’d woken up anyway. Seeing her there, swaying slightly in his doorway had startled John but he’d pretended to remain asleep. She’d weaved her way into the room to sit on his window seat and looking out the window, she quietly, though drunkenly, said “s’alright Johnny. I’ll k-keep him ‘way from ya. He won’t take ya agin.” John was confused about who she could mean. He almost started to ask her who she could be talking about when Harry began to cry, broken little weeping noises coming out from behind the hand she had pressed to her mouth. She got up unsteadily and walked over to his bed, tucked his blanket tighter around him, and leaned over to kiss his forehead softly. The strong odor of alcohol and something else with a bitter edge to it overwhelmed him for a moment until she pulled away and weaved back out of his room, shutting the door quietly behind her. He’d lain awake for another 30 minutes or so trying to make some sense out of Harry’s drunken ramblings, until finally he heard his da’s alarm going off and he’d slipped back into a light doze until his mum had come to wake him for school.

 

Now, as John was opening the door to the kitchen, he found his mum once again crying, her head lay on her folded arms as she sat at the kitchen table. He heard the sound of his father and sister shouting in the sitting room, only catching the last half of his father’s sentence: “ –in my house! If this is all you can make of yourself, then you can get out!” His sister shouted back “As if I want to stay here, watching you and Mum slowly rot your lives away in this pitiful excuse for a town! The only reason I’ve stayed as long as I have is Johnny! Someone needs to keep him while you and Mum are out getting shit-faced at drinks parties every weekend which, by the way, makes your bellowing about my drinking pretty fucking hypocritical!” John ran past his mother and through the kitchen doorway and watched as his father, redder in the face than John had ever seen him, shouted back “THEN GET OUT! Pack your damn bags and get out of my house! Don’t even think about coming back unless you can pull your head out of your arse!”

 

Harry had gone pale and with tears streaming down her face, she pivoted and ran up the stairs to her bedroom. John heard her slamming things about in her room. Their father pushed past him and into the kitchen to where their mother was and collapsed into the chair beside her. John looked at his parents and then ran up the stairs to stand in his sister’s doorway, where he saw her grabbing up clothes and shoving them into the large bag that lay open on her bed. He began to cry as well, for he knew that this meant that Harry really was leaving. He rushed into the room and threw himself at her legs.

“Hey, hey, now,” she said as she went down to the floor, and pulled him close to her.

 “Harry, you can’t go, please,” John begged her.

 “Ssh, ssh, now, I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t take it anymore. If I could, I’d take you with me but you need to stay and finish your school,” Harry said with a sad smile, tears running down her face.

“Why can’t you just do like Da says and stop going out? He wouldn’t be so mad,” John used his jumper sleeve to wipe the snot from underneath his nose.

“It’s not about that, Johnny. This is grown-up stuff, you won’t understand until you’re older,” Harry ruffled his shaggy hair back from his forehead.

“That’s stupid, grown-ups always say that to little kids.” he sniffed.

“Well, that doesn’t make it any less true,” she hesitated for a moment then said “Johnny, I want you to do me a favor while I’m gone.” John sniffed and nodded.

“I’ve got a book that Gran gave to me when I was young. I want you to take care of it for me. It’s really old and it has a lot of words in it but you can try and read it when you’re older,” she looked at him steadily, although tears were still leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

She got up; pulling herself from John’s hold, and walked to an ornate box she kept on the dresser, opened it, and pulled out a thin, red leather book and handed it to him. “Maybe it’ll help you keep you safe since I’m not going to be able to be here to do it,” she reached over, zipped the bag closed, and picked it up.

“I’m going to London to stay with some mates that have a place there,” she told him. “I’ll try and let you know how to get a hold of me as soon as I can. If anything strange happens, I want you to let me know. I’ll try to come back as soon as I can if you need me.”

John clutched the book to himself and shuffled over to throw an arm around her knees, making her heart twist painfully as he looked up at her with his huge, wet, blue eyes. She remembered a similar expression once, a long time ago. Right before she made the biggest mistake of her life.

She bent down and pulled him up into a hug, pressed a kiss into his hair, and moved back. “I love you, brat.”

“I love you too, Harry,” John sniffled, still clutching the book.

She moved around him, her heavy bag pulling her shoulder down, and went out of the room. She ran down the stairs and out the front door. When it slammed behind her, John’s mum wailed from the kitchen and John collapsed onto Harry’s bed, holding the book to him. He lay there silently crying for several minutes until he finally rolled over to sit up. He looked at the book in his hand. There was only an ornate flower border pressed into the red leather covering and two words, picked out in faded gold leaf: The Labyrinth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another angst-filled chapter and a late posting! Double sorry! Fear not the angst, it is pretty much impossible for me to not have a fluff resolution (spoilers, sweeties)!  
> Maybe someday, I’ll figure out how many chapters I want this thing to have but for now, the writing continues!


	5. It's very rude to stare!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sport played here is Rugby, in case it's completely unrecognizable. 10 minutes worth of Wikipedia and watching a bunch of videos on Youtube (mostly of the NZ All-Blacks doing haka) gave me the minimal knowledge I needed to completely butcher an exciting sport for the sake of fan-fiction.

The noises from the upstairs bedroom sounded like a tom cat. With his balls caught in a vice. 

The man reading a newspaper in the sitting room downstairs finds that he cannot enjoy his activity to its fullest, as he keeps twitching and wincing at the high squeaks that are being wrung from the clarinet by impatient lips and fingers that were trying to get through the practice pieces as quickly as possible. Why the boy’s mother insisted that he continue taking music all the way through year 11, he’d never know. 

Finally after another twenty minutes, the noise blessedly stops, a door slam reverberates through the house, and the perpetrator of all the ungodly noise comes thumping down the stairs as fast as he can. 

“When’s Mum gonna be home?” the blonde teenager asks as he speeds through the room on his way to the kitchen, for a snack raid, no doubt. “Any minute now,” says his father, turning the paper to the next page, “You better not be into those sausages. You know she’s saving those.” 

“Ah, right, yeah, “comes the muffled reply from a clearly full mouth. The fridge door shuts and the boy strolls back into the room, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m gonna go ‘round Gerald’s. Probably picking up a match with some mates in the park,” says the boy as he picks up a jacket off the back of a chair where it had been flung previously.  “Alright, back by 9 then,” says John’s father as he gets up. He hears the front door slam as he opens the fridge to raid the aforementioned plate of sausages himself. 

The boy jogs two houses down and pounds on the front door until it’s opened by another boy; red-haired, scruffy, and yawning. “Come on, lazy bastard,” the blonde says as he pushes past the other, making straight for the kitchen. “Fuck off, “says the other boy, as he lets out a huge yawn and stretch before ambling off through a door to get some proper clothes. “We’re supposed to meet Rich and the lads soon,“ John raises his voice as he gets out the makings of a cheese and tomato toasty and proceeds to make some for himself and his friend. 

“Where’s your parents?” John calls as he watches the cheese get bubbly and melty. “Up Sandhurst for the day, some bloody Gurkha parade. Took the twins to see it,” came the call back. “That’s cool, those Gurkha’s are right wicked,” John says as the other boy comes stumbling and yawning into the room. John hands his friend a plate with two toasted sandwiches on it before turning his attention to his own.  

“Help yourself then,” says Gerald around a mouthful of toasty. “Ta,” John says as he smirks around a bite of his own, “that’s why I made some for you too, git. Didn’t want you to suffer when I ate in front of ya.” 

“You’re always eating,” Gerald says as he stuffs the last half of his food into his mouth and grins around it. “Wingers, need the fuel for speed,” John laughingly says and then with an “Alright, let’s go,” he grabs a napkin and wraps it around his second toasty and they’re off out the door to the park. 

From the top of a tree in the middle of the block, round eyes follow the path of the two boys down the block. Before they can move out of sight around the corner, the large owl kites off his perch to shadow them to their destination. Swooping far above their heads, back and forth; watching from a distance as they laugh and jostle each other. When they finally get to the park, the owl chooses a good vantage point, lands, and watches as the two boys hurry to merge into a large group of awkward youths, mostly around their same age. 

There is some negotiating; the group then splits into two halves. The owl’s head cocks to the side, watches as John gets swallowed up into his half (‘ _really, he is short compared to some of these monstrous brats’_ ) and then the groups break up and take up positions opposite each other. 

‘ _Well, this is mind-numbingly boring_ ,’ the owl thinks, as it watches the boys kick and pass an oblong object up and down the green space. John mostly spends his time off to the side of the large middle group, waiting for the object to be passed to him. 

After what seemed like hours, some minor skirmishes, petty posturing, and a few scores for both sides, the owl is so bored, he’s actually readying to leave when he notices that John has finally been passed the silly thing and is running down the field. 

He’s so focused on watching John sprint down the field (‘ _look at him fly,_ ’ he thinks fondly) that he doesn’t even notice the other, much larger boy until he has brutally tackled John into the grass. John goes down hard, face first into the pitch and when he lifts his head up, his face is dirty and blood begins to trickle down from the side of his mouth from where his teeth have made contact with the inside of his lower lip. 

With a shrill cry that sounds absolutely nothing like an owl should produce, the bird tears down from the tree. Using his claws and beating wings, he goes after the head and shoulders of the poor boy that had the misfortune to tackle John. Screaming, the boy ducks and covers to the ground with his arms over his head to protect himself. 

The other boys, most of whom had been making their way to that end of the pitch, could only watch in horror as one of their mates was attacked out of nowhere by an enormous barn owl. John lay on the ground, frozen in shock for a few moments but finally manages to stumble to his feet and run at the ridiculous scene shouting and waving his arms “Hey, stop! Get away from him! Hey!” As he got close, the owl suddenly peels off and away, circling above John who watches the bird in fascination and not just a little fear. It almost seemed like the bird was giving him a good look over and then it flew away, up and over the tops of the trees. 

 John blinks and then focuses on the boy at his feet, whose arms were now covered in brutal scratches , blood splattered all down his clothes; and took action: “Hey, someone run down to the shack and see if they’ve got water and bandages,” John directed. “Matt, James, help me get him over here to the bench,” and John watched as the two larger boys hauled poor David (and his newfound, life-long terror of all birds) to his feet and over to the bench at the side of the pitch. 

The owl watches from a new higher vantage point as John shucks off his shirt and uses it with the retrieved water to clean the blood off the boy’s arms. ‘ _That hooligan injured him and he still stoops to take care of him_ ,’ the Goblin King muses, watching through the eyes of the snowy white barn owl. ‘ _What am I going to do with you, John? You’re far too caring_.’ He is somewhat embarrassed by what appears now to be a slight overreaction as it doesn’t seem that John is that injured after all… 

“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!’ said one of the smaller boys gathered around the duo at the bench. ‘ _Francis? What is that kid’s name?_ ’ John thinks as he keeps mopping up the blood from Davey’s arm. The overexcited boy keeps going in the squeaky, breaking voice of mid-puberty: “It’s like that bloody bird attacked him because he tackled you, Johnny!” John gives a sick kind of grimace and says “Don’t think so, mate, just one of those freaky things. You alright, Davey? I think some of these deeper ones might need some stitches,” he says to the boy on the bench, who keeps looking up at the sky in fear. “Yeah, think I’ll go home and have Mum take me to hospital. Let’s go, James,” and one of the bigger boys helps him get shakily to his feet and some of the group break away to follow after them. 

“Well, this will take some explaining,” John laughs as he looks down at his bloodied shirt. He starts to shiver with the departure of the adrenaline that had kicked in between the run down the pitch and then the bird attack, so he walks over to where he threw his jacket before the start of the match and calls to his friend “You coming, Gerry? Might as well head back.” 

His friend says something to one of the other boys and jogs over: “You’ve got red on ya,” he points to John’s chin. John takes a swipe at his face with his hand and sees the blood has mostly dried into flakes anyway. “I think everyone should be back by now,” Gerald says, “Maybe we can get Mum to make us up some scones.”

“That’d be great,” John says as he zips up the jacket, “your mum bakes way better than mine.” They both laugh and then start a fast walk which turns into a jog which turns into a flat-out sprinting race. John just barely wins, making it to his front walk inches ahead of his friend. He turns in and says “I’m going to get a new shirt and throw this one in the wash. Maybe Mum will be able to save it. Meet at yours in 5.” 

“Alright,” Gerald says as he keeps going, headed for his own front door, “See you in a bit.” John opens the front door and heads in, finding only silence. He throws his jacket onto the same chair he picked up from hours earlier and walks through into the kitchen where he finds a note on the table: 

            'Johnny,

                      Forgot to tell you that your father and I promised Mrs. Neels that we’d go around to hers for tea and then we’re going over to the Carleton’s for a drinks party. Should be home by 10. Don’t eat the sausages!

                                                                      Love, Mum. 

John sighed and crumpled up the note in resignation. Really, he was practically raising himself here. If he didn’t want to sit for his A-levels next year so he could be a doctor like his granddad Hamish, he’d be off to London to take Harry up on her long-standing offer to live with her. He walks through to the washer and throws the filthy bloody shirt in. He turns and heads back through to the sitting room, and quickly goes up the stairs into his room. He grabs the first shirt he sees and jerks it over his head as he runs back down the stairs. He grabs his jacket again and is back out the door quickly. 

He slings the jacket around his shoulders as he jumps off the front step. He raises his chin to avoid getting a nasty zipper injury when he does it up. This action causes his eyes to catch sight of the large barn owl sitting on the roof of the house opposite his own. His eyes don’t leave the bird as he walks down to Gerald’s front door and when his knock is answered, he practically walks backwards through the door, unwilling to break eye contact with the creature, which has followed him with its eyes the whole time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Long time no see! Writers block? Writers block.


	6. Knock, and the door will open

“What… are you doing?” Gerald asks as he watches John peek through the drapes of the front room window for what must be the tenth time that evening.   
“Just, ya know, looking outside. Well, I better get back. Tell your mum thanks for the biscuits,” John grins at his friend, as he picks up his jacket and shoves his arms into it. He’s been over at Gerald’s for a few hours now but he’s been vaguely twitchy the whole time and now that it’s time for him to be getting back to his own, he’s wondering what he’ll do if he sees the owl, ‘I mean, is that thing following me?!’

“Oooo-kaayyy, nutter” says Gerald, “Well, I guess I’ll see you on Monday?”  
“Yup, see ya,” John says as he opens the front door and tries to nonchalantly scope out the area. It’s too dark to really see anything, so he relaxes slightly, shakes his head at himself, and makes for his own front door. He’d cut across the lawns but if old Mr. James catches him, there’d be hell to pay (again), so he half-jogs along the pavement. 

None of the lights are on at his, but that’s to be expected since his parents are out and he forgot to leave one on when he left. He heads into the kitchen, grabs a plate from the cupboard, and raids the fridge for leftovers. Even if his parents aren’t home that often in the evenings, his mum keeps the place well stocked to keep her Watson men full, as they are so very grumbly when hungry.

Carrying his spoils up the stairs to his room, he opens the door and deposits the plate on his desk, on top of his school books that he’d left open from yesterday evening. Then he goes to search in the ornate box on the top of his bureau.

The box is the same one that used to be in his sister’s room but the only thing that’s the same inside is a thin, red leather book buried at the bottom. He finds the letter that he’s looking for and goes to sit down at the desk. The letter is the last one that Harry had written him, giving him her new address and telling him that he was welcome anytime. After today’s happenings, he feels like he should talk to someone but he knows it won’t be his parents. Gerald was a good mate but the thought of telling his friend: ‘I think I’m being followed by a bird,’ just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

London is about an hour away by train but he has enough pocket money saved up that he can afford the ticket and then to take the bus or tube to where he needs to go. He thinks about what to say to his parents as he eats his food, and resolves to check the map his dad keeps downstairs. He hopes he won’t have a hard time getting to this address in Tottenham that his sister is at, as he’s never been to London by himself. He shouldn’t have a problem as he’s been with his mum several times to visit Harry. His father never acknowledges their trips, as he’s still maintaining the façade that he doesn’t care about the wayward daughter he’d basically thrown out.

~~  
The next morning, John slips out of the house before 6:30. He’s left a vague note on the kitchen table, telling them he’d be out most of the day. It was Sunday and although his family was religious, he knows his parents won’t wake up until the sun is well up and his train will have already made it to Waterloo station. He’d heard them come in last night after 11:30. He’d woken up when his da had cracked open his door to make sure he was tucked up in bed like he was supposed to be. 

John had always been a reasonably well-behaved child. His parents worried about him but it was the polite, loving worry of having a child in general, not the gut-clenching worry that Harriet had given them, so they’d never suspect their responsible, trustworthy, and mature golden child was sneaking off on a secret trip to London to visit the black sheep of the family. He doesn’t think they’d throw a huge fit but still, he’s not going to ask their permission lest they say no. And so he sets off to make the 7:36 train and is in front of a dismal looking building that matches the address that Harry gave him before 10:00am.

John looks around, frankly disgusted and disturbed by the neighborhood he finds himself in. Not that he was a posh snob or anything but ‘Good god, couldn’t Harry find a better place to live?’ He wonders why she moved from the last, much nicer flat where she had lived. He heads up the steps and presses the button for flat 2C, the one that Harry supposedly lives in. He waits for a minute or so, and then presses it again, then a third time. Finally, crackling through the speaker, he hears a sleepy male voice say “What? Who is it?” or at least he thinks that’s what they said as it sound more like: “Wut? ‘oozzit?”  
He replies back “Umm, hi, umm is, is Harry Watson there?”   
“Depends, hoos askin’?”   
“Umm, would you tell her that her brother is here to see her?”   
“ ‘old on.” John waits with his back to the entrance and fidgets, takes in more of the run-down neighborhood until he hears a clatter on the stairs through the door. He turns around as it’s thrown open and his sister squeals “Johnny!” before she wraps her arms around him tight enough that he’s fairly sure he heard something crack when she squeezes.  
“Hey, Har,” he says as he pulls back a bit. They’re pretty much eye to eye in height. Even though Harry has 10 years on him, he’s got an inch on her. He’s secretly hoping for a growth spurt but isn’t holding out much hope. Most of the Watsons are on the shorter side. 

He notices that she looks rough, wearing some truly ratty clothes, her blond hair swept up raggedly, and what appears to be the remains of last night’s makeup. “Had a late one, did you?” he asks as he extricates himself from the hug of doom.   
“Oh yeah, Dave and I met up with some work mates and…” the rest of Harry’s story buzzes around him. Something about going out to a new club, drinking too much, and then getting home at 3am. He’s more interested in looking around at the building as he follows Harry up the two flights of steps and down the hall to her door. When she opens the door, John notices that the place is dingy but not a complete shit hole, surprisingly but it smells like cigarettes worse than any place he’s ever been. The owner of the male voice is revealed as one of Harry’s flat mates, sitting at the table with his head cradled on one of his hands, smoking with the other. He appears to be waiting on the kettle to boil, while trying to shield himself from the indirect sunlight coming in from the east facing windows.

“Fucking hell, did you ‘ave to come so early in the mornin’?” the man grumbles, “ Too early to be up on my day off.”  
“Piss off, Dave, my baby brother is welcome any time he wants!” sings Harry as she goes to pull four mugs out of the cupboard next to the sink. Dave grunts at this and gets up to leave the room, presumably off to the loo. Harry smirks at his retreating back and begins dropping tea bags in to two of the mugs and spoons some instant coffee into the other two. 

When the kettle clicks off, she fills them and then turns around. “Go ahead and sit down, Johnny,” she laughs at her brother standing musingly in the doorway, “Don’t mind him, he’s always like this until he’s been up for at least an hour or so.”  
John gives her a half smile and sits at the untidy table and watches his sister move around the kitchen. “Who’s the other cup for?” he asks.   
“Oh that’s for Clara. She’ll probably be along in a bit. She just moved in about three weeks ago. Friend of a friend, looking for a flat share closer to her job,” Harry smiles and lowers her voice, “She’s well fit!” John wrinkles his nose at her.  
“What? Problem?”  
“You know there isn’t, but it’s weird to hear about your sister’s…crushes, no matter which gender they are.” John laughs as he glances around the flat, taking in details and making judgments on how his sister was living.

Harry had (diplomatically) let their mother know on their last visit that she probably shouldn’t expect grandchildren any time soon or at all really. It had been one of the hardest things she’d had to do. Living in London had made her more at ease with her sexuality and she had decided she wasn’t going to make excuses any more when her mother asked her ‘If she’d found a nice man to settle down with…’ 

To say that John’s parents were shocked was an understatement. They preferred to deal with it all by the age-old parental method of ‘ignore the issue and it won’t be a problem’. They certainly weren’t telling the neighbors about this when they politely enquired about how Harriet was doing ‘up in London’. They let it be known at the dinner parties they attended that her job was keeping her “too busy to think about settling down”. John’s father especially was having a hard time. It was hard to overcome 45 years of dogma and masculine posturing.

John, being the affable kid that he was, was mildly thrown when his sister had revealed her preferences. He had briefly been worried that someone back home might find out and tell it around the school, but that was normal teenaged selfishness. He had decided in the end that he loved his sister and he would defend her and his family to anyone that dared bring it up.

“Oh shut it!” Harry said as she pulls the tea bags out of the mugs and adds sugar and milk, to the intended’s taste. John’s tea, she hands to him, grabs herself one of the mugs of coffee, and goes to pull a packet of biscuits out of the cupboard. She puts them on the table and is just settling herself down in the chair opposite John when a tall red-haired woman comes hurrying into the kitchen, looking around frantically, and talking a mile a minute: “Harry,haveyouseenmykeysIcan’tseemto-, OhHello!” the woman smiles at John and then carries on “IknowIhadthemyesterdaybutnowthey’vegone-“  
“They’re on the counter over there, just beside the kettle, Clar,” Harry smiles at her indulgently, a slightly besotted look on her face. She belatedly remembers to introduce John, “This is my little brother Johnny, up visiting for the day”  
“HelloJohnny!OhthankgodHar,you’vesavedmeagain!” the woman proclaims as she snatches the keys from their location, dashes out of the room, and then comes back with an enormous bag. She grabs the remaining mug of coffee and takes two large gulps before setting it back down on the counter, scurrying for the door, and proclaiming “I’mgoingtobelateagain,IknowI’llget toldoffthistime,nicetomeetyouJohnny!” the last of which is delivered as the door shuts behind her.  
John has been sitting dazedly through the entire scene and as the echoes of the door shutting fade, he looks at his sister and says “Well, she’s not half scatterbrained, is she?” and the Watson siblings crack up laughing so hard, Harry has to clutch the table to keep herself in the chair.

“OH god!” Harry finally says as she wipes at her streaming eyes and takes a sip of her cooling coffee. “So, not that you need a reason but I can see you have one. What brings you to sunny old London, baby brother?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diiiid you miss me? Well, I think by now you've all figured out I'm a filthy liar about updates so we'll just agree  
> that this will eventually get done. Somehow. Someday.

**Author's Note:**

> Well. What do you think? I'm so excited about this fic. I’m going to try to post weekly if I can keep writing ahead but I’ve got slight ‘Oooh, shiny object’ syndrome and I get quite distracted by other grand ideas. I’ve already had another lovely AU idea that I’m not sure I’ve got the chops to write but let me know if you want to hear what it is and maybe I can convince someone to take a stab at it for me :).


End file.
